The need for conventional bar soap is common in today's hospitality industry. Most hotels provide each guest room with one or more bars of soap, including hand and bath soaps. Guests tend to stay for short periods of time and do not use the entire bar of provided soap during their stay. Conventionally new bars of soap are placed in the guest rooms each day and the used bars of soap are disposed of. As a result, much of the soap supplied in the hotel rooms is wasted adding to the cost of operating the hotel. To reduce this soap bar waste, the hospitality industry has made hotel soap bars smaller in dimension. However, the smaller bar does not completely eliminate waste many people prefer the larger dimensioned soap bar for ease of use.
Several U.S. patents describe soap bars with structural cores to reduce wastage. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,221,506 issued to Dulin (1993) describes a soap bar having a soap-impregnated sponge core. The sponge core of the '506 patent is preferably open celled and impregnated with soap and is exposed as the outer layers of the original soap bar are worn from use. Once the soap is washed away from the original soap bar and the sponge, the user is left with a usable sponge. In the '506 patent waste is reduced by the soap layers leading directly to and within a sponge and as the soap layers are worn away the sponge supports the sliver of remaining soap so that it can continue to be used and thus eliminates wasting the sliver of soap.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,438,010 issued to Lindauer et al. (1984) discloses a bar of soap with a perfumed plastic core” in contact with the soap substance and method for making the same. Similar to the '506 patent, the perfumed core of the '010 patent is exposed as the outer layers of the original soap bar are worn from use and waste is reduced by the soap layers leading directly to the perfumed core.
However, in the embodiments described in the patents, the core is disposed of as waste along with the unused soap, thereby actually increasing the cost of utilizing cored bar soap. The foregoing patents are not concerned with reusing the structural core with a fresh layer of soap. Rather, they are targeted at reducing soap waste as the bar is worn down to a sliver from repeated use. Currently there are no known soap bars comprising a soap layered structural core, which can be repeatedly recharged for use. More recently it has become common practice to provide the guest with liquid or gelled body soap in a container that can be hygienically used by different individuals. However, liquid soaps can be cost prohibitive and many users prefer solid bars of soap to the liquid body wash.
For the hospitality industry, soap bars are replaced daily or at least with each new guest. Normally the soap bars are only minimally used and a substantial amount of useable soap is wasted.
It is therefore a paramount object of the present invention to provide a soap bar designed for minimal use.
It is another object of the invention to provide a minimal use soap bar having a structural core which is coated with soap and can be repeatedly cleaned and replenished with a fresh soap layer for hygienic reuse.
It is an additional object of the present invention to provide a hygienic soap bar, having minimized capacity for contamination with harmful germs and that can be used by different individuals without wasting soap.
These and other objects and advantages of the present invention will become apparent upon a review of the following description.